BOLTON'S junior MasterChefs put the icing on the food and drink Festival's cake.

Youngsters at Crompton Place shopping centre tested their culinary and creative skills in a Bank Holiday cooking extravaganza to celebrate the Food and Drink Festival.

The ‘kids in the kitchen’ activities included a design a cupcake challenge, which saw the children compete for a £20 voucher and box of cupcakes.

They were also invited to decorate a cupcake and design a smoothie.

Organisers also asked youngsters to pick fruit and use pedal power on ‘smoothie bikes’ to whip up a smoothie.

They could also test their skills in the ‘fruity tooty’ test to see if they knew their pears from their pineapples or their mangos from their mandarins.

Chantel Ramdeal, from Darcy Lever, Bolton, watched her two children Teagan, 11, and Sebastien, nine, get involved.

The care assistant said: “They had a great time making the cakes. It’s a great end to the summer holidays and they really enjoyed it.

"It makes a nice change to be able to come into town and be able to do some fun activities with the children.”

Kids in the Kitchen was organised to coincide with the 10th Food and Drink Festival, which saw tens of thousands of visitors descend on the town, along with celebrity chefs James Martin and Michael Caines, and Celebrity MasterChef 2010 winner Lisa Faulkner.

Yolanda Chance, from Farnworth, brought her six-year-old daughter Olanya Walton along.

She said: "Olanya absolutely loved making the cupcakes and it was great that it was free of charge. There’s not many activities which don’t involve a cost.

“She’s normally quite bored when I do my shopping so obviously it was a great treat for her to be entertained for a while.

“The food festival seems to get bigger and bigger every year and it’s great that there are a few different things running alongside it. It brings lots of people to the town.”

Crompton Place manager Paula Wood said: "The Bolton food and drink festival is now an important event in the UK's culinary calendar and we were delighted to be able to play our part.

"I'm glad to say all the children had brilliant time and I think the likes of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood had better watch out for our cup cake whizz kids."